


Tiny Little Fractures

by anr



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looks tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiny Little Fractures

**Author's Note:**

> Request: Chapel helping McCoy with some sort of intimate therapy and things getting a bit complicated.

The first time she notices, they're halfway through the Jothra mission and sickbay is full for the second time since the Narada incident and she's not even paying attention to McCoy -- she has ten broken bones to heal, and two dozen more sprains and gashes and bruises on top of that -- but the Captain's voice is loud, even above the murmur of the freighter's survivors, and she looks up as he says, "shit, Bones -- you look worse than they do. When's the last time you --" and while she doesn't hear the rest, or his answer, she has just enough time to realise the Captain's right -- he _does_ look worse -- before Ensign Jones carries over a small child, a kid probably not older than two or three at the most, and she's turning her attention to the cut on his cheek, and to his older brother's dislocated shoulder, and by the time she thinks to look up again, the Captain is gone and McCoy is in surgery and she thinks, _later_.

Later.

  


* * *

  


She doesn't forget, not exactly. She looks at him, sometimes, and thinks, _you look tired_ , but they _all_ look tired, that first year. The _Enterprise_ is the Fleet's flagship, the hero of more stardates than she can recite in a dozen breaths, and there's always _something_ , some mission or battle or disaster or diplomatic event for them to attend to. She doesn't know anyone on the ship who can sleep through a red alert and its aftermath.

So she thinks, sometimes, _you look tired_ , and she maybe mentions it, once, when they're checking on Sulu after the Lieutenant's appendectomy, but he doesn't even look at her, just grunts a little in response, and then he's rattling off a list of orders and by the time she's even halfway through them, he's no longer in sickbay and Nurse Li tells her that he's gone off shift, and she thinks, _okay, he's okay_ , and if he still looks tired the next time she sees him, well, that's probably only because they're at the end of another double shift and they're all tired again.

Probably.

  


* * *

  


Half the ship gets infected with a toxin that makes them see things that aren't really there and she's lucky -- she's the last to get infected before Spock and Lieutenant Scott figure it all out and create a cure -- but being the lucky last still means three torturous hours where she's pinned under medical restraints in sickbay while little black buzzing _things_ with sharp, sharp teeth and nails and razor-thin wings swarm all over her while McCoy just _stands_ there and does nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , to help her and --

When the sedation wears off, McCoy is sitting in the chair beside her bio-bed and sickbay is quiet and the chronometer on the wall behind him is telling her that it's been at least a day and a half since she first reported for her shift before everything went to hallucination-hell and he looks like he hasn't shaved in two days and slept in a week and she has no idea what she was screaming at him when those _things_ were on her but she hopes at least one scream was her telling him to get some goddamned _sleep_ because he looks like _shit_ and --

"Hey," he says, low and gruff, leaning forward and pressing his fingers against the inside of her wrist like he's going to take her pulse the old-fashioned way. "You okay?"

She breathes out slowly and thinks, _okay_.

  


* * *

  


It's not that he _never_ sleeps -- he wouldn't be able to function, let alone practice medicine, if that were the case -- it's more that he never seems to sleep very _much_. She knows what the average human male needs per cycle in order to remain healthy and, the fact that she finds him above-average notwithstanding, she has serious doubts he's getting even half the amount the rest of the crew are.

She knows she should probably report him -- there are regulations to back up these sorts of concerns -- but she also knows that if the situation was reversed, if it wasn't him but _her_ , well. She'd want him to come to her, first, before going to the Captain or the Fleet or anyone else. He's a good doctor (and man) from everything she's seen so far, and he deserves the same respect she'd like to think she has from him at the very least, so.

He's been on duty for three shifts straight -- she knows this for a fact, she checked the logs -- when she lets herself into his office and locks the door behind her and he doesn't even look up from his PADD as he mentions something about having one of the staff check whether their decon chamber is rated for level five p'sx'ii't'za'lolly treatments and she opens her mouth to say, _yes, Doctor, of course, right away_ , but what she says instead is, "we have a problem."

  


* * *

  


The conversation goes about as well as she could have expected, and when she leaves his office, an hour later, she tells Doctor M'Benga that Doctor McCoy is sleeping in his office and is not to be disturbed for anything less than a ship-wide emergency, and puts the used hypospray she used to sedate him with in the recycler. She finishes her shift, and has dinner in the mess, and she's in her quarters, getting ready for bed, when the computer alert she programmed tells her that McCoy has signed off duty for the evening so she's prepared for the chime on her door when it comes.

He waits until she's let him into her quarters before beginning a tirade that starts with, _I can't believe you drugged me_ , and ends with about a half-dozen court-martial threats, but she stands her ground and hers is more solid than his, supported by regulations and medicine and, hell, it's not like she hadn't _told_ him she was going to sedate him if he didn't agree to go get some sleep, and it's not like he didn't then tell her to _go right ahead and do that then_ , if she was so sure she was right, so.

"Damnit, Christine," he says, running a hand through his hair, and she starts because that's the first time she can ever remember him calling her that.

"If you prefer," she says, as calmly as she can, "I can arrange for Spock to teach you neuropress--"

"The hell I'd prefer that!" he snaps, and then they're arguing _again_ and she knows this can't be good for their working relationship, tearing strips off each other like they are, but _damn_ if it isn't a little bit fun, too, giving everything he's giving her right back to him, and.

 _Oh_.

  


* * *

  


He sleeps, a little, afterwards, sweat cooling on their bodies and their limbs still mostly tangled. She watches him frown in his sleep and wonders if it's nightmares, if that's the reason he doesn't rest as much as he should, and when he wakes, an hour or so later, she opens her mouth to ask him as much.

"I'm still mad at you," he says before she can, but he smiles a little as he says it and his hand lifts hers to his mouth. He brushes his lips over the center of her palm.

"You still need to sleep more," she counters, sliding one of her legs between his. She's not stupid enough to think that what they've just done has made any significant difference -- sedatives and sex are not cures, she knows -- but it's maybe a _start_ to something healthier and that's better than nothing.

"Sleep," he says to her, and she huffs a little -- _hypocrite_ , she thinks -- and she knows they still need to discuss this some more but a yawn escapes before she can say so and even if he is the definition of insomnia, _she's_ not, so she thinks, _later, we're definitely going to talk about this later_ , and closes her eyes.

She falls to the sound of his breathing, even in the stillness of her quarters, and the touch of his skin against hers, and dreams he does the same.

Sleep.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/491521.html>


End file.
